A roundup of today's other stories in brief
Prodi survives early vote of confidence
ROME - Italy's prime minister Romano Prodi survived a confidence vote in the Senate yesterday, winning the stamp of approval for his new government from the upper house of parliament where he has just two seats more than the opposition.
Mr Prodi won by 165 votes to 155, with his margin of victory boosted by a Yes vote from all seven of Italy's unelected senators for life and one independent senator. - (Reuters)
Mugabe has key critics arrested
HARARE - Zimbabwe police arrested senior opposition politicians and deported South Africa's most powerful union boss yesterday as President Robert Mugabe's government pressed on with a crackdown against critics.
Arthur Mutambara, who leads one faction of Zimbabwe's splintered opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was arrested with other MDC officials while campaigning ahead of a Harare byelection today seen as a key test of voter discontent with Mr Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF. - (Reuters)
Cervical cancer vaccine 'safe'
NEW YORK - A vaccine with the potential to slash worldwide deaths from cervical cancer is safe and effective, according to US advisers.
A 13-strong advisory committee for the country's Food and Drug Administration recommended unanimously that Gardasil be sold in the US, leaving it just one step from approval. - (PA)
Trial of Seselj set for October
AMSTERDAM - The war crimes trial of Vojislav Seselj, leader of the opposition ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, will start in early October, the UN tribunal said yesterday.
Seselj (51) surrendered to the Hague tribunal in 2003 to face charges including persecution, extermination, murder and torture of non-Serbs in the Balkan wars in the early 1990s. - (Reuters)
Iceland may be next to join EU
BRUSSELS - Iceland, struggling with financial turbulence, could be the next country to join the European Union after it admits Romania and Bulgaria next year or in 2008, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said yesterday.
He told the European Policy Centre think-tank that Iceland, which has never applied to join the 25-nation bloc, undoubtedly met the EU treaty criteria for becoming a candidate since it was a European country that respects European values. - (Reuters)
Hot reception for Sarkozy in Benin
COTONOU - Hundreds of protesters shouting "racist, out" gathered in Benin's main city Cotonou yesterday to demonstrate against a visit by French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy and a new French immigration bill they say is unfair.
Armed riot police and soldiers guarded the oceanside city's interior ministry building as some 300 protesters, many of them students, chanted slogans and waved placards while Mr Sarkozy met with his counterpart from Benin, according to one witness. - (Reuters)
Fire at munitions dump injures 10
JUBA, Sudan - A fire at a munitions dump sparked a series of major explosions outside the southern Sudanese capital of Juba yesterday, injuring at least 10 people.
The fire caused intermittent explosions for about 90 minutes from 4pm (1pm GMT) and sent a plume of smoke into the air on the edge of Juba, where the government of southern Sudan is based, witnesses and UN staff said. - (Reuters)